Yesterday I did manage to do some knitting during experiments but it seems as if the more I knit, the length just stays the same! I am sure this will pass today hopefully.

Yesterday was mad, as I am having a week off next week, I am trying to prepare so that I have everything finished before I go. I worked my ass off yesterday to get everything done.

Non knitting: Something very exciting happened in the evening; My friend maria who is Catholic decided to set up an interfaith meeting, so we organised it and yeterday evening we had one! I was the Buddhist representative, Maria was the Catholic one, there was a Muslim guy, Hindu woman, Morman guy and a Jewish guy. We all gave a speech about what we do and why we do it, and it was so interesting to learn about other peoples faith's, and then we had a long prayer for world peace, and loads of people turned up!. Pretty amazing really!!

Anyway back to the knitting fiance: the man is officially hooked! He knits everywhere, whenever he is chatting, and there are hours of it in our house! Not to mention that his knitting is perfect. Hmm.

Shock horror number 2!

I truly didn't do any knitting yesterday, but hey! We had water pouring through the wall in the kitchen and the plumber had to come and sort it out, now we have half a wall in the corner and its very ugly, never mind, at least its not my house, and a couple of glasses of wine later, I couldn't have cared less!.

Any way here is a picture of my silk dyed and a sample knitted, and the soya silk spun, and a sample knitted.



Hopefully I'll get to knit my lacey top during experiments today, however, I have had so many interesting people come to do them we just havn't stopped talking!

Oh my goodness, look how posh the new picture thing is!! you can even click on it!

SHOCK HORROR!!

I didn't even pick up my needles at all yesterday, not even for one little row! Ah I just remember that is a complete lie! Phew! I was worried for a minute there, me and anth did knit over a up of tea when we got home, (shall I just repeat that sentence again, me and ANTH knitted over a cup of tea!!!) LOL!

I knitted up a sample of the pure silk yarn I dyed, and also my soya silk, which is really fine, and has a slight texture of nylon I think, it drapes like a fine wool, and has a slight feel which is stange, I can't think of the word at the moment, but I'll amend the blog when I think of it.

I will definately post pictures of both samples tomorrow. I just had inspiration as what to do with my green tape yarn from the US, I love wearing small skirts over trousers in the summer, and I am a bit mad on sage/olive greens, so I think I may design a skirt and make a crocheted one for this very pupose! ( I am currently wearing what looks like a sarong over my trousers, which everyone thinks is lovely, little do they know I fished it out of my material box this morning and wrapped it around and tyed it up (he he).

Going now to look for inspiration.

Oooh! Only 4 days to do until stitch and bitch cardiff! Yeah!!!

jeni :-)

Not finished anything! Continued with my lacey top, and the stripey one, nearly on the second peice of the back, I am desperate to finish them and start some new stuff now, But I will continue! I have found a cheap sustitute for Rowan cotton glace, (links soon). Finished spinning a skein of soya silk, and its lovely. I also ordered some samples of pure silk to knit, and have dyed them, they are still hanging on the tree in my back yard drying, and the back door is stuck closed so I couldn't be bothered to climb out the window this morning to retrieve them, but I will take photo's this evening and post them tomorrow, if succesful, I might be able to sell some on ebay, I'll have to see.

Thats it! Oh not quite, 'A' knitted alot over the weekend (he carries it everywhere with him, he is starting to be able to talk and knit as well!) and then this morning I caught him browsing through my latest Rowan mag, and he commented that he would like to knit some things from the denim book. I was unable to speak at this point for fear of screamng in delight. If he gets truly hooked, it may mean we will be sitting side by side in the south of france knitting on our Honeymoon, if this happens I will die a happy woman.

jen :-)

Converting non-knitters

I was due to post a picture of my Lynettes fantastic scarf ( my newly introduced knitter) and I think it has got lost in Cyber space, I'm sure it will turn up soon.

Finished the front peice of the stripey top and am now due to start the back. Still working on the front of the lacey top, but a few lines a day keeps the unfinished projects at bay!

Converting knitters:

So now I have persuaded my partner to knit, my lodger has finished her cheen'a'bean dog waistcoat (don't even consider trying to work out where the hell the name cheen'a'bean came from, its best left undiscovered) Lynette has finished her scarf and is onto the next, my smaller stepson has knitted a scarf, what can I say? It won't be long and knitters will have conquered the world.

So thats it probably until monday, and hope fully with some pictures of somethig I have finished!!

Anths Jumper

Nearly finished the first side of my stripey top, and still going with the lace!

Here is a picture of A's jumper, its very neatly knitted, and he did a tension square as well!!

I was so proud!

A lucky woman.

'A' has started knitting a jumper. Finally!! he did give up a few times, but took his own advice and decided to do it properly and make it into a meditation excercise! Apparently its very theraputic to breath in over three stitches and blow out over three. All I have to say is thats Expedient means for you!

If it means he becomes as knitting obsessed as me, I will encourage him with what ever eastern philosophical means I can find, (A is obsessed by anything chinese/japanese).

I'll take a sneaky picture and post it tomorrow. he has even hinted that he might like to do something rather summery in cotton!! LOL!!

Oh, by the way it turns out he is a grammar god.

I couldn't wait!

I got sick of the lace, and had to start the colour project, so I'll be alternating them!

worked all weekend, so I am struggling to type this, this morning so its gonna be short, because I need to save my energy for my normal job! So here the product of last nights efforts with colour ( the picture does not accurately reflect the colours)



Here is a close up:



The green line is two different greens alternated, this was brilliant fun to do, although I'm not to sure about the goldon yellow yet.

Dreams

I had a dream last night about my grammar being so bad that I wasn't allowed a blog anymore. I think that came from reading yesterdays blog and knowing that the grammar isn't right, but not sure why!

So instead of getting excited i'll just keep it simple, and I'll start reading my grammar book, and see if I can learn it in a different way. I can computer programme for goodness sake, so being dyslexic doesn't mean I can't learn the rules of language, I just need a new way to learn them. (If there are any regular readers, try and imaging me talking instead of writing, it helps the blurb make more sense!)

Now for some knitting content after all thats why we are on this earth! Progress on the top: doing sleeve shaping. Thats it!

Oh and decided to trim down my stash a bit because there are yarns which I probably won't use, and I don't have enough room for them all (spring cleaning mode!) I was thinking of flogging them on Ebay, but if there is anyone who would be prepared to pay the postage you can have them, they are mainly synthetic fibres some grey sirdar snowflake and other strange things.

I'll have a good sort through tonight and take some pictures and if anyone takes a fancy, let me know.

Happy spring knitting.

Ok I'll start again! Just lost my post.

A short version: Spent friday spinning my new fibres, and managed after alot of effort to produce some 2 ply cotton, which is great. It's really difficult to spin because the fibres are short and they are not slippery like wool, so it took alot of adjustments to my wheel before I could get it right. The soya is great to spin but I haven't plied it yet. Pic's soon.

Sat night went to wedding party, Sunday spent with mum and dad and nan, who is so sweet! She loved my knitting but kept forgetting that she had seen it, and got as excited each time about it.

Sunday evening we drove to london to stay with a very special friend Phillip. Went sightseeing on Monday, (all I really wanted to do was go to John lewis' to buy wool, and low and behold the damned shop was closed, however Marie thankfully came to the rescue and told me that Liberty's sell some. They only sell Rowan and Jaeger, however the colour range was tremendous. I happened to be carrying my knitted bag and the shop assistant loved it, that really made my day. I then brought Kaffe Fassets patterns library, which is so inspiring (some of the patterns are very eighties according to A) however I don't really care, it got me so excited I decided to buy 7 different colours of cotton glace, and either design a little vest top or use an existing pattern from a rowan catalogue and adjust the colour design. Here is a picture of the colours I purchased:



So if you ever go to london, I can recommend Liberty's because the shop assistants are so lovely!

Went to the National gallery, the monet's always inspire me to knit something in pale blues, soft greens and pinks!

I managed to do some knitting on the journeys, and am now half way through the front of the lace top, it's definately doing my knitting good doing this top, because I am getting so much quicker, and fluent with the pattern. I even think I could design some lace from getting used to the lace pattern.

So all in all an inspiring weekend.

Hmm,

I just took that grammar test which everyone seems to be taking, I am not actually going to put my full result because there were a number of expletives and if my mum reads this she won't like it, but to put it mildly it suggested I go back to school. The way I see it, providing I can read a yarn pattern I don't really care about anything else!!

Anyway if you worry where you put your misplaced modifers I think you ought to get out a little more often!

Interestingly I had to publish this post 7 times to correct the spelling (he he).

I've finished, well half of it!

So, I got up early this morning determined to finish the back of my lacey top, I did make a huge mistake, because I failed to read that I had to cast of the middle, but I recitified it without any problems:

Here's the picture:



And then just as I was finishing, a lovely parcel arrived with this in it:



It contains soya bean fibre; (silk for vegans)!! To be honest it is absolutely gorgeous, its so soft, not quite as soft as silk, but worth it considering its so much cheaper. I also got a wool and linen mix, some raw tussah silk, and bamboo fibre, which I had read somewhere was a bit scratchy, but it seemed pretty soft to me, and finally loads of cotton fibre.

So now I intend to spend good friday spinning to my hearts content, and creating some delicious yarns for summer clothes!!

Wednesday?

What can i say? Not much really, I have nearly finished the back, only about ten lines to go, then i'll post a picture.

I am determined not to start anything until I have finished this lacey top, unfortunately I think this is actually because I am so skint that in order to have nice clothes I have to make them, so if I don't finish anything I don't have anything to wear!! Hopefully however my new job starts on July 1st, which means proper wages and yarn, yarn and more yarn, and loads of unfinished projects, Yeah!!

Not included in the new projects determination is the creation of some socks, this is because because I can't knit the lace and talk at the same time, I make too many mistakes, and you can't frog lace (well I can't) because I get completely lost with the stitches. I will start some socks to knit around my family at easter so I can chat to them and knit, and save the intended Knitty project till I have finished it.

Strong urges

I am having a strong urge to knit myself a pair of scrumptious socks. Perhaps with mohair stripes in them.

Hmm, Nearly there

I have ten cm's to go on my lacey top until the back is done. Its very unusual for me to keep going, so just to make sure I am going to cast on the rib for the front so I go straight into it as soon as I finish the back.

Thats it really, The lovely Tom is still living with us, and shows no signs of wanting to go home, which is ok with me, I am getting used to having a teenager in the house now, and he is the politest and most helpful teenager I have ever lived with, and he doesn't even have smelly feet!!

I'm still waiting for my fibre to arrive in the post, its taking soooooo long, but hopefully ready in time for friday so I can have a spinning day. Oh there might be a trip to John Lewis' on Monday in London if I can persuade Anth and Tom to take a detour. Yeah!!!

Well, I had thursady and friday off because I didn't feel to good, ( However, I havn't yet found an illness where I can not knit), thankfully my hands worked just fine, and I knitted a jumper on thursday with my charity shop wool, and I love it so much I havn't even washed it yet because I can't take it off for long enough!! Here is a picture:



Friday I spun some yarn and dyed it with my favourite colours,

I am getting the hang of making quite thin yarns now, but they are still going to be too warm for summer so I am just depsperate for my silk and bamboo and cotton fibre to come in the post so I can spin some summer yarns!

Saturday was Stitch'n Bitch cardiff, which was great, I brought along my friend lynette who has been dying to learn knitting, and she started off making a thick scarf made with stripey yarn in browns, and it looks absolutely fantastic, the edges were perfect, no accidental increases or dropped stitches and no changes in tension, I can't believe it!! I will post pictures when she has finished, because I am so proud of her, definately a natural knitter!

Marie was making a fantastic scarf with two yarns, it was really amazing, I hope she posts pictures soon.

Oh and I am on the arm decreases on the lacey top which is very exciting, I was convinced I would never get this far with it!

Finally I am sure everyone has seen the new issue of Knitty there are so many things I want to make.

Anyway signing off now to do some real work so I can get money to feed my yarn habit!